Favorite As many will remember, in August of 2022 the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) placed what it called “Tornado Cash” along with a list of Ethereum digital wallet addresses, on its “Specially Designated Nationals” (SDN) sanctions list. The goal was to prohibit anyone within the United States from “dealing” with the…
All posts tagged News Update
Flipper Zero Devices Being Seized by Brazil’s Telecom Agency
Favorite You may have heard of the Flipper Zero. It’s marketed as a “Portable Multi-tool Device for Geeks”—a programmable portable device packed with hardware that facilitates wireless penetration testing and hacking on the go. The device, which greets its owner with an adorable cyber-dolphin on its monochrome 128×64 pixel screen, is facing problems in Brazil:…
Stalkerware Maker Fined $410k and Compelled to Notify Victims
Favorite Last week, the New York Attorney General secured a $410,000 fine from Patrick Hinchy and 16 companies that he runs which produce and sell spyware and stalkerware. In addition, he and his companies must modify their stalkerware to alert victims that their devices have been compromised. This sends a clear message to app developers…
eIDAS 2.0 Sets a Dangerous Precedent for Web Security
Favorite The Council of the European Union this week adopted new language for regulations governing internet systems that may put the security of your browser at greater risk. The new language affects the EU’s electronic identification, authentication and trust services (eIDAS) rules, which are supposed to enable secure online transactions across countries in the EU.…
San Francisco Police Nailed for Violating Public Records Laws Regarding Face Recognition and Fusion Center Documents
Favorite By unanimous vote, San Francisco’s public records appeals body ruled last night that the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) violated state and local laws when it failed to respond adequately to EFF’s requests for documents about face recognition and the department’s relationship with the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), the Bay Area’s fusion…
California Law Enforcement Now Needs Approval for Military-Grade Surveillance Equipment. We'll Be Watching.
Favorite California residents finally have a law designed to dismantle some of the secrecy around domestic acquisitions of warzone surveillance equipment. The weapons of the United States military—drones, mobile command centers, sound cannons, and more—have been handed off to local law enforcement for years. The transfers have equipped police departments with the ability to redirect…
EFF to Court: Fair Use is a Right Congress Cannot Cast Aside
Favorite Copyright law and free expression have always been in tension, with the courts protecting speech from overzealous copyright claims using legal doctrines such as fair use. But in 1998, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and since then courts have interpreted its “anti-circumvention” provision to give rightsholders the unprecedented power to block even…
Copyright Regulator Eases Restrictions on Research, Education, and Repair
Favorite The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has interfered with a staggering array of speech and innovation, from security research to accessibility for those with disabilities to remix and even repair. By forbidding unauthorized access to a copyrighted work—even for purposes that don’t infringe copyright—the DMCA effectively erased over a century of law that limits…
Victory! Federal Trade Commission Bans Stalkerware Company from Conducting Business
Favorite In a major victory in our campaign to stop stalkerware, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today banned the Android app company Support King and its CEO Scott Zuckerman, developers of SpyFone, from the surveillance business. The stalkerware app secretly “harvested and shared data on people’s physical movements, phone use and online activities through a…
Civil Society Groups Seek More Time to Review, Comment on Rushed Global Treaty for Intrusive Cross Border Police Powers
Favorite Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), European Digital Rights (EDRi), and 40 other civil society organizations urged the Council of Europe’s Parliament Assembly and Committee of Ministers to allow more time for them to provide much-needed analysis and feedback on the flawed cross border police surveillance treaty its cybercrime committee rushed to approve without adequate privacy safeguards.…